


The Raid

by Hyarrowen



Category: Enemy at the Door (TV)
Genre: Gen, Great War, Prequel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-21
Updated: 2016-05-21
Packaged: 2018-06-09 17:22:13
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,090
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6916444
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hyarrowen/pseuds/Hyarrowen
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>January 1915.  One cold night, a raid leaves the German lines and crosses No Man's Land.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Raid

**Author's Note:**

  * For [lost_spook](https://archiveofourown.org/users/lost_spook/gifts).



The dugout was one of the worst it had ever been Dieter's misfortune to occupy. Barely enough headroom to accommodate the dwarfs of children's tales, freezing cold and rapidly awash every time it rained; and it rained - or snowed - several times a day. Boots and spare clothes hung from the roof-beams, restricting the already cramped space still further.

Dieter was not sure if it made it better or worse that he shared this tiny fox-hole with his absurdly young company commander – who took every risk and shared every hardship that his men did and more - but whose very presence seemed to fill all available space to overflowing. He would worm his way through the tiny gap that opened onto the trench, radiating competence, ambition and enthusiasm, and Dieter, if awake, would have to listen to an admittedly crystal clear report of all that the company had been doing; and if asleep, would get the same report, updated, when he woke up. He was exhausting even beyond youth's normal capacity to exhaust, and Dieter would not have changed him for any company commander in the sector. 

Dieter himself was not a career soldier, but Erwin was more even than that: he had a calling. So it was no surprise one night when footsteps splashed along the trench and his voice came through the narrow entrance to the dugout. “Are you joining us, Dieter, or do you want your sleep out?”

Dieter muttered a curse, retrieved his boots and forced his way out of this unfriendly womb into the still more hostile world outside, where reluctant figures were massing, only their helmets clearly visible against the cloud-obscured moonlight above. Dieter found his sergeant, assembled his men, and hearing Erwin's characteristic words, “Follow me!” did just that, up a sap that led towards the French front line, coming fully alert as he did so. 

A bugle-call galvanised him; he was up over the lip of the sap, splashing through mud and slush, pounding across a little dell, ghostly in the snow-light, and up into the copse beyond unharmed, his men in a gasping rush behind him. He peered through the clump of grasses behind which he lay to where a man was crawling ahead, and amid the crackling of rifle fire heard the repeated deep twangs as he did his work on the barbed wire of the fences. An urgent gesture summoned them forward, repeated with savage emphasis when they did not follow immediately. The men scrambled through the gap that Erwin had made, and advanced again. A breastwork loomed up, Dieter yelled for grenades, and they tumbled over the lip of the enemy trenches ready for close and savage work.

Nothing. A scatter of equipment amid the choking smoke, signs of a hasty departure, but no men to hold the trench. Dieter had just sent his men to secure either end of their trench when the bugle sounded again. Erwin was attacking. Again.

They ended up holding a semicircle of three blockhouses, connected by narrow, damp trenches, damaged here and there by the explosions of their attack. The French surrounded them on three sides. They had their own private salient, in fact. Very cosy.

A quarter of an hour later, Dieter had gone to check on his casualties, huddled in the shelter of a half-demolished gun emplacement, with sandbags spilling across the fire-step and duck-boards. There were French soldiers there too, their red trousers just visible in the pre-dawn light, and someone moving between them. A young man, tousle-headed, and clearly in a foul temper.

“You will see to my men too,” stated Dieter, once he had established that this was, in fact, an enemy medical officer.

“Yes, yes, in good time, Herr Leutnant,” came the response. “You will forgive me if I attend to the the most urgent cases first. Put your men here,” and he gestured at the last remaining few metres of space. “I will see them when I am able. For now, I'll thank you to let me return to my work.”

With that, he turned his back firmly on the German, who exchanged glances with the corporal behind him, and gestured for their casualties to be placed where indicated.

“Do you need any extra supplies?” Dieter asked courteously.

“Oh, a mobile field hospital, if you happen to have one. Failing that, all the bandages and iodine you've got. I need lights here and here.” He pointed, and Dieter sent a man scurrying to set them up.

Then he went to the nearest blockhouse where Erwin was scanning the enemy's support trenches with fierce concentration, before doubling back to look at their own front lines, now some three hundred metres to the east.

“We can't hold this position,” Erwin informed him briskly, “we will have to withdraw. Have your men pick up all the maps they can find, orders, you know the kind of thing, assemble them here, and we'll punch the enemy hard on the way out.”

“There are wounded men just around the corner.”

“Any of them ours?”

“A few, but all capable of walking with help.”

“Then bring them with you. We'll go from the next blockhouse instead. I don't want to bring fire down on casualties.”

Another ten minutes, and they were ready to go. Forcing his way past a mass of his men, now collecting their comrades from the impromptu first aid station, Dieter was stopped for a moment by a caustic remark from the medical officer now reaching the end of the line of wounded Frenchman. “Leaving us so soon, Herr Leutnant? How sad to see you go.”

His French had an accent that Dieter couldn't place at all, not quite Norman, but... No matter. “I regret to say so, Herr Doktor. You will have assistance from your own side soon.”

“Until next time, then.”

The Germans all got back to their own lines again, if not quite in one piece, at least ambulatory. The fusillade that followed their withdrawal was dying down, and half an hour later he and Erwin were back in their dugout, the latter writing up his report and making trenchant remarks about lack of support from the battalion, and people getting too comfortable where they were. Dieter, having seen about hot breakfasts all round, sat blinking over his own report, before seeking his bed, where he wondered as he fell into an abyss of sleep just how that young doctor, in his own way as intransigent as Erwin, was doing on the other side of the lines.

**Author's Note:**

> Erwin is Erwin Rommel, later Field Marshal, known to his enemies as the Desert Fox, whose photograph hangs behind Richter's desk in the series. This raid is a simplification of one of his early exploits, when he was still a young infantry officer.


End file.
